The illusion of marginality

De-Registered User — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:54:13 +0000

Marginal people? No creature is marginal to its own existence. Marginalisation is just a concept incorporated to our “social taxonomy” according to Prof. Paul Richards. Prof. Paul Richards (Technology and Agrarian Development) from the Wageningen University, argues that in ecology and evolutionary there is no such thing as “marginal people.” Everything has its own place. He argues that the creation of “marginal people” is just a reflection of the human need to classify its environment. It is also a reflection of our capacity to produce insidious harm based on our lack of trust on the others ("I trust myself more than I trust others, I can blame other more than I blame myself"). Prof. Richards argues that in early medieval times most social misfortunes were attributed to the unfitness of the rulers (they were accused for either not being able to do their work or to follow God’s desires), and that rulers were often “marginalised” from common society. This started to change during the later medieval period (the beginning of the market economy), when the blame shifted from elites to certain minorities.

Tropentag 2019 - Student blog - Marginality

The illusion of marginality